“Dark Dance” by Little Scream

Today, Little Scream – aka Montreal-based Laurel Sprengelmeyer – shares the accompanying visuals for “Dark Dance”. It marks the second track off her album Cult Following, available now on Dine Alone/Merge Records.

Of the track, Sprengelmeyer says, “one night I found myself dancing alone down an alleyway, singing in the dark. The further I walked down it, the further I sunk into my memory until I felt like I might actually step into my past when I emerged on the other side. This song was born there, it starts in the present and each verse moves further into the past. The main loop in the song is from an iPhone recording I made – it’s a very lo-fi gentle thing that I got really attached to, everything else was built around it.”

Meanwhile, director Lee Skinner elaborates, “‘Dark Dance’ is ostensibly a music video about the rhythms of attachment, anxiety, and courage in an obscure future. But that just represents the cooled platelets that form on the surface. It’s the turbulent mantle underneath, composed of a dreadful wonder of the natural universe, that drives those outer elements. How do we act in the face of such mystery? Do we worship it? Do we endeavour to profit from it? Do we vow to destroy it? Or do we simply bask in its violet light with a dance partner? That’s what lies at the core for our protagonists. Having the capacity to run and jump. To be sad, mad, and silly. To agree and disagree harmoniously in a dance at the threshold to the void.”

All of which are words that could just as easily apply to Cult Following in its entirety. The album sees Mary Margaret O’Hara, Sufjan Stevens, Sharon Van Etten, Aaron and Bryce Dessner from the National, Owen Pallett, and Kyp Malone all make guest appearances on the album, but the world they inhabit is entirely Little Scream’s. Her voice acts as a tour guide through lush sonic landscapes carefully constructed with her creative partner, Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, and while the duo – alongside their heady cast of collaborators – dance across myriad moods and styles, what runs through Cult Following to its core is a sense of giddy creation and joyous experimentation in the face of an increasingly frightening world.

CULT FOLLOWING TRACKLIST
1. Welcome to the Brain
2. Love as a Weapon
3. Dark Dance
4. Introduction to Evan
5. Evan
6. Aftermath
7. The Kissing
8. Wishing Well
9. Wreckage
10. Someone Will Notice
11. Silent Moon
12. Goodbye Every Body

TOUR DATES
Jul 12 – San Francisco, CA @ Swedish American Hall
Jul 14 – Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar
Jul 15 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza
Jul 16-17 – Vancouver, BC @ Vancouver Folk Festival
Jul 22 – New York, NY @ Panorama Music and Arts Festival
Jul 23 – Oro-Medonte, ON @ WayHome Music & Arts Festival
July 25 – Toronto, ON @ The Phoenix*
July 26 – Ottawa, ON @ Algonquin Commons Theatre*
July 28 – Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre*
Jul 30 – Sackville, NB @ Sappy Fest
Aug 12 – Eau Claire, WI @ Eaux Claires Festival
Oct 28-30 – New Orleans, LA @ Voodoo Music Experience

* w/ Beirut

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